It is intolerable that the BBC could act as a spokesperson and funder for an antisemitic genocidal terror group
28 February 2025, 15:31 | Updated: 2 March 2025, 09:40
“This is the BBC.”
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For over a century, people around the world have listened through world war and Cold War, in the corridors of power and in the darkness of dictatorships, to these words.
There was a time when these words meant something.
The BBC meant truth. Impartiality. Honest inquiry.
But now that legacy of a century’s work has been hijacked and corrupted.
Our national treasure has become a national embarrassment.
Over the past couple of weeks, we have seen the BBC go from one scandal to another, following the publication of its so-called documentary, ‘Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone’.
On Thursday night, the BBC quietly admitted that licence fee funds were paid to the family of a senior Hamas official.
In other words, our fees – the ones that are demanded of us in letters threatening prosecution if we don’t pay them – went to a terrorist’s family.
Not only is the British public funding a broadcaster that has apparently given money to a proscribed terrorist organisation, but British Jews in particular are being forced to pay for propaganda for a group that seeks to annihilate them.
Let’s not forget: Hamas is responsible for decades of suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks, culminating in the wholesale slaughter of some 1,200 Israelis on 7th October 2023 in the worst antisemitic massacre since the Holocaust.
Let’s also not forget that this latest BBC scandal has not happened in a vacuum.
The BBC’s endemic anti-Israel bias, exemplified by its refusal to describe Hamas as terrorists, its mistranslation of Arabic phrases like ‘Jihad against the Jews’ as ‘resistance against the Israelis’, its misreporting of incidents and the refusal of its journalists to apologise for their errors, and the Corporation’s constant portrayal of the Jewish state in the worst possible light, have been going on for as long as anyone can remember.
An organisation like the BBC doesn’t end up giving money to a senior Hamas official just by accident: it is part of a pervasive problem of bias enabled by a wilful blindness to its own deep flaws.
That’s also why the BBC cannot be allowed to mark its own homework on a matter this serious. We need an independent inquiry to provide real answers and accountability.
That’s aside from the police investigation, which the Met clearly needs to launch following complaints by us and others to Counter Terrorism Policing.
It is intolerable that our state broadcaster could be acting as a spokesperson and funder for an antisemitic genocidal terror group – and that ordinary British citizens have to foot the bill.
We have called on the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, Lisa Nandy, to suspend the licence fee, pending an independent investigation into the BBC’s bias.
We invite everyone to join our call by signing our petition.
Change must finally come to the BBC.
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Gideon Falter is Chief Executive of Campaign Against Antisemitism.
Follow @GideonFalter on X. LBC Opinion provides a platform for diverse opinions on current affairs and matters of public interest.
The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official LBC position.
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